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The President’s State of the Union address this week re-iterated some of his key themes on immigration—support for comprehensive reform, dismay that DREAM Act students and foreign students educated in this country have no way to legalize their status, and a belief that he’s done enough to the secure the border. More importantly, he framed these themes in context to America’s economic recovery, innovation and growth. However, while any mention of immigration in the State of the Union is welcome, it’s what the President didn’t say that may have more of an impact on how his administration is remembered this year on immigration—and how his vision is measured by voters in the coming election.

In the State of the Union address, President Obama repeatedly signaled to Congress that he would sign sensible bills to reform our immigration system, big or small. But he quickly noted that partisan politics would make it all but impossible to pass comprehensive reform:

The opponents of action are out of excuses. We should be working on comprehensive immigration reform right now. But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let’s at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country. Send me a law that gives them the chance to earn their citizenship. I will sign it right away.

There are plenty of bills that fit this description, from the DREAM Act to proposals offering green cards to foreign graduates in science and engineering to support for immigrant entrepreneurs, but they are just as likely to flounder in the sea of partisan politics as something grander and more comprehensive.

And while the president suggested that the ball was in Congress’s court, he didn’t mention that his Administration has moved forward on reforms that don’t require Congressional action. The Administration has become more aggressive in the last in year in fixing parts of our backward immigration system, such as overhauling immigration detention, a review of the Secure Communities program, a re-invigoration of the use of prosecutorial discretion, and attempts to promote streamlined adjudications and family unity. The latter, announced just weeks ago, has generated real excitement among immigrant communities.

Similarly, changes to the way government officials decide what cases should be prosecuted in immigration court—and what cases should be dropped—have given hope to millions of immigrants that they may be able to stay with their families, at least for a while longer. But there remains considerable uncertainty about how DHS will routinely exercise discretion, especially amidst reports that DREAM Act students and others who clearly fit the government’s low priority status are still being deported.

In the areas of detention reform and Secure Communities, however, the early enthusiasm about change has been replaced by wariness on the part of advocates who want to believe promised reforms will be made. They have been repeatedly disappointed by delays in the detention realm and a continued commitment to keep Secure Communities alive, a program that many believe undermines community safety and policing.  A special task force voted out a series of necessary reforms and gave their report to Secretary Napolitano last September, but DHS has yet to announce how it will implement these recommendations.

Although these ongoing administrative reforms don’t fit tidily into the overarching vision of immigration policy the President laid out in the State of the Union, following through on them would have a lasting effect on both immigration enforcement and the consideration of benefits for those stuck in our broken immigration system. And the President shouldn’t abandon his larger vision. He has made significant strides in helping to reshape how people who don’t much care about immigration think about it and that will be critical when the time comes for comprehensive reform. But for those most directly affected by our immigration crisis, it is the most immediate details that matter most.

Photo by WhiteHouse.gov.

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The Obama administration’s recent announcement that it intends to change regulations allowing the children and spouses of American citizens to stay together while processing  applications for legal permanent resident status has the immigration restrictionists crying wolf—or more accurately “amnesty”—once again. They are characterizing the administration’s rule change, as they do any and all actions that are not enforcement related, as a “backdoor amnesty.” Some are also characterizing the change as a strategy to bypass Congress.

Congressman Lamar Smith, for example, said in a statement that the Obama administration was bending long-established rules to put the interests of “illegal immigrants” ahead of U.S. citizens. Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, called the announcement “part two” of the amnesty plan first announced last fall when the Obama administration said it would review current cases in deportation proceedings to see whether they were really priority cases. Calling this new proposal any kind of amnesty is not only inaccurate, it’s tired.

As reported on Friday, the administration plans to issue a regulation that would address a long-standing problem in immigration law—a Catch 22 created by requiring those  spouses and children of U.S. citizens who have been in the country unlawfully to depart the U.S. before completing the processing of their application for lawful permanent residence. The trouble is that once they leave the country, they are subject to a three or ten year bar for unlawful presence and need a waiver to get back in. The new proposal would allow them to submit the waiver application before departing the U.S., thus reducing the time, anxiety, and sometime danger inherent in waiting abroad for a decision.

This Catch-22 is one of the most notorious problems in the immigration system and the regulatory change is long-overdue. Due to processing backlogs, uncertainty of outcomes and violence in cities with key U.S. consulates—such as in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico—the prospect of becoming a lawful permanent resident has become an uncertain and frustrating affair for some applicants. Recognizing this problem, which arises in part from regulation, is an example of USCIS acting responsibly to address a problem of its own regulatory making in an expedient and lawful way.

USCIS’s proposed change, or “notice of intent”—which will be subject to the full range of public notice and comment—is intended to change a processing requirement set out in a regulation, not in the statute. If anything, offering a notice of intent to issue a rule gives the public even more warning that the government intends to undertake a the regular process of adopting a new regulation.

The truth is this rule change will not open the doors for more immigrants, or provide relief for the millions of undocumented immigrants in this country without the necessary family and work relationships to obtain status. Therefore, calling it “amnesty” is nothing short of hysterical.

The public is tired of knee-jerk responses to all things immigration. Polls consistently show that people want solutions, not political wrangling. The fact that opponents of immigration reform paint everything that isn’t enforcement as “amnesty” isn’t surprising. Their responses, just like their solutions, are limited and short-sighted. In this case, the policy they are calling “amnesty” we call common sense.

Photo by katerkate.

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The firestorm around the inclusion of the term “anchor baby” in the new edition of the American Heritage Dictionary has led to a dramatic reversal in the definition. Not only did the executive editor, Steven Kleinelder, emphatically apologize for the initial definition, he promised swift action to change it. By Monday morning, the term was labeled as “offensive.” By Monday afternoon, a new definition appeared online, one that was crafted to reflect more accurately just how artificial a term it really is:

anchor baby n. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially when the child’s birthplace is thought to have been chosen in order to improve the mother’s or other relatives’ chances of securing eventual citizenship.

This is the kind of controversy that doesn’t fade away quickly, and many argue that the term is so offensive that it shouldn’t appear in the dictionary at all. I understand but disagree with that position, largely because the term, however offensive, exists as a political and practical reality. I think the new definition validates what many outraged voices in blogs, on Twitter, and in the press have been saying all along: “anchor baby” is a term that shouldn’t exist but does because immigration restrictionists are really good at creating words that generate fear.

While the origins are not reflected in the definition, characterizing the term as both “offensive” and “disparaging” says volumes about how it is used in real life. I would much rather have a curious student or citizen have the ability to look up the term in the dictionary and find this definition than to find no guidance and accept the meaning and agenda of restrictionists who used it.

And of course, that agenda is the repeal or amendment of the Fourteenth Amendment to eliminate citizenship at birth. The Immigration Policy Center has published numerous articles on the legal and practical problems inherent in that position. This position, in turn, arises from the misplaced notion that the problems plaguing our current immigration system would somehow be eliminated if only we could prevent persons here without legal status from having children.

It’s not solely the dictionary’s job to lay out the politics behind words. It is the job of advocates and scholars, policy-makers and politicians, community leaders, people of faith, and everyone else who values a constructive solution to immigration reform.

We must not only monitor how terms are used and defined, but must work to make hateful terms archaic. If we challenge the people who prefer fear to solutions, and direct our energies affirmatively towards an immigration system that is thoughtful, fair and reflects our country’s needs as well as our values, then hateful terms like “anchor baby” can become part of the past.

Photo by Péter Gudella.

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The degree to which the immigration debate has coarsened over the last few years is no more evident than in the pages of the recently released fifth edition of the New American Heritage Dictionary. Among the new entries is the term “anchor baby.” You might think that the definition would read something like: slang, a pejorative description of a child born in the United States to parents without legal status, implying that the parents intend to leverage the child’s citizenship to “anchor” their own presence in the U.S.”  You would be wrong.

Instead, the definition reads:

anchor baby n. A child born to a noncitizen mother in a country that grants automatic citizenship to children born on its soil, especially such a child born to parents seeking to secure eventual citizenship for themselves and often other members of their family.

According to the dictionary’s executive editor, the trick to defining new words is to “to define them objectively without taking sides and just presenting what it is. And, in some cases up, you know, anchor baby is definitely a very charged, politically charged word.”

Although the politically charged nature of the word made defining it difficult, the editors ultimately felt it was best to put the word in with no commentary, claiming “it falls into a gray area where we felt it was better just to state what it was, and then people can filter their own life experiences through the word and judgments on it as they see fit.”

The trouble with this philosophy is that “anchor baby” is not a neutral term, nor from what we have been able to find, has it ever been. First, it appears to be a wholly American term, one mired in the politics of anti-immigrant rhetoric. Those who use it are not in the business of clinically describing some sort of sociological phenomena. They are instead intent on suggesting that people come to the country illegally and deliberately have babies in order to use their children’s citizenship to acquire legal status of their own.

Second, the New American Heritage Dictionary’s definition ignores the very specific intent of the term and, in fact, gives it more credibility by treating it as some sort of universal description of children who acquire citizenship at birth. This masks the poisonous and derogatory nature of the term, a term which demeans both parent and child and in the process suggests that it is acceptable to call a child born in the U.S—i.e. an American citizen—an “anchor baby.”

What is particularly disturbing about this new definition is that it confuses popularity of a term with neutrality. While the term anchor baby has skyrocketed in usage in the last decade, that usage appears to be spurred by the general explosion of anti-immigrant rhetoric, blogs, and other media outlets. Objective reporters tend to put the phrase in quotations, to indicate that the term is a loaded one.

In fact, back in 2006, Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn received complaints about his reference to the child of an illegal immigrant seeking sanctuary in a Chicago church as an “anchor baby.” Zorn found that the term isn’t a neutral descriptor, but instead, according to one of his sources, it’s a way to dehumanize the children of undocumented immigrants. Upon reflection, Zorn said that the complaints he received were a “good enough reason to regret having used it and to decide not to use it in the future. Sound arguments don’t need loaded language.”

And loaded language needs to be identified as such in the dictionary. The New American Heritage Dictionary acknowledges the derogatory nature of hundreds of terms. By failing to do so with the term “anchor baby,” however, the dictionary implies that the term is acceptable in common usage and misleads the public by insinuating that giving birth to a child in the United States necessarily carries with it the intention of using that child for immigration status.

In an era where politicians and pundits have no qualms about being imprecise, dictionary editors need to be—even if that means calling a term “highly charged,” “political,” or down right nasty. While dictionaries may be neutral, language isn’t. “Anchor baby” is a term that epitomizes the way words reflect and reframe a debate.

UPDATE: Since publication of this blog post, the executive editor of the New American Heritage Dictionary has agreed to revise the definition of to reflect the derogatory nature of the term. Read more…

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Washington, D.C. area schools participate in the Urban Debate program, which gives middle school children the opportunity to learn the art of debate. My sixth grader signed up right away. She was surprised to learn, however, at her first tournament that many people have no qualms debating either side of an issue, no matter how they personally feel about it. She also discovered that a few kids had no problems saying whatever they had to say to win. She was in tears because another twelve year old insisted that American lives were more valuable than others in a debate over U.S. military involvement abroad.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that in the debate over immigration we see far worse nearly every day. The misinformation that is routinely spread and the disregard for human lives is common in the immigration debate. Whether it is politicians calling for electrified fences, schoolchildren herded in to gymnasiums to determine their legal status, or blatant misuse of statistics to scare the public, immigration is hardly a genteel topic.

This year in particular, as the Alabama law unleashes a civil rights crisis in that state, I can only imagine that there will be some very difficult conversations around the Thanksgiving dinner table. Although proponents of immigration reform are armed with more anecdotes and statistical information than ever, the increasingly preposterous stories coming out of Alabama will make some people shake their heads and say—it just can’t be so.

So what to do? We offer a list of tips for making the case, politely but firmly, for a rational immigration policy.

1. Be prepared. The Immigration Policy Center’s (IPC) website contains numerous short fact sheets on immigrants and the economy, crime, unemployment, immigration reform and more. At a minimum, download your state fact sheet. And since Alabama is all over the news, check out IPC’s recent publications and blog posts that detail some of the absurd consequences of HB 56.

2. Be sympathetic. The evidence is mounting that most people who fear immigrants are really afraid of the change that immigrants represent. This is particularly true in states that have relatively little immigration, such as Georgia and Alabama. The number of immigrants is small, but the percentage of growth can seem huge. Try to figure out what is really irking your relative—are they angry that their favorite restaurant has changed hands? Ask them what they would do if that same restaurant closed. Are they afraid that there will be no jobs for Americans? Ask them if they believe immigrants, rather than lack of job training and job growth are better targets for their ire. Helping them to see that change can be positive and is rejuvenating many communities can help to reframe the conversation.

3. Avoid the blame game. Don’t get trapped into arguments that start out, “well, those people broke the law.” Try to move the conversation forward by stressing that rather than focusing on punishing the past, you want to think about how we make the future better for everyone. I often say—because I believe it—“I can’t get the jobs back that may or may not have been lost in your community. All the economic studies show, however, that immigration is essential to further economic growth. So, if we want a better future for everyone, we have to find solutions that work right now.”

4. Know your audience. There are issues you just shouldn’t touch and maybe immigration is one of them. But it might also depend on the way your present your arguments. A deeply religious person could be unmoved by your crisp economic analysis, but genuinely touched by the biblical call to aid the stranger. There are so many different reasons to support immigration reform—you don’t have try to list every one of them in one breath. Less, in fact, may be more.

5. Be practical. You are not necessarily going to win your loved ones over with a single brilliant analysis. But you can ask questions that get them thinking differently. Ask them what the solution is from their perspective? Can we really afford to deport 12 million people?  How can legalization be an amnesty when it requires people to register, pay taxes, stay right with the law and “earn” citizenship?  Wouldn’t you rather have folks paying taxes at their full potential than being paid under the table and not paying their full share? These kinds of questions really do start the dialogue.

6. Find common ground. The fact that most of us have an immigrant past—no matter how distant—sets the stage for a conversation. How was grandma or even great-grandpa treated when they came over from Italy, Germany or Ireland? What did they want for their future? Where would America be today without those immigrants who took a risk? The more people realize that they have a personal stake in keeping those opportunities alive for others, the more they might listen to your point of view.

7. Find the exception to the rule. No matter how anti-immigrant someone is, they will have at least one friend or colleague who defies their stereotypes of immigrants. If you let people talk for a while, the story of that friend will inevitably come up. Start asking questions about that exceptional immigrant’s life.

8. Have another piece of pie and a cup of coffee. Food is a universal facilitator of conversation. It’s much harder to yell at someone with pumpkin pie in your mouth.

Sooner or later, Urban Debate will probably tackle the question of immigration, but when it does, I want my daughter to be able to draw a distinction between arguments grounded in reality and compassion and those that are motivated by nothing but fear or a desire to win. There are legitimate policy debates to be had on the immigration question, but for many people, the conversation never gets that far. If you can get past square one, I’m convinced that most people will see that immigration reform is in the country’s best interests. And if that happens, then maybe next year’s feast will be a bit more pleasant.

Photo by moonrat42.